The Grateful Dead may have only really been the inspiration for some delicious ice cream, the belief that beards are good and bands that wank on and on and on even though everyone wants them to stop, but at least their old crap still sells at auction.
Yesterday all kinds of Grateful Dead gear was flogged off at a San Francisco auction – including some of Jerry Garcia's old guitars, a suitcase full of Jerry Garcia's old guitar strings and some of Jerry Garcia's empty boxes – raising over a million dollars in the process. More than anything, though, the Grateful Dead auction proved that even old hippies are capable of buying shit and then wondering how the hell they're going to justify spending $16,800 on a manky old case with some string in it to their wives when they get home.
Here's a good way to gauge how good a guitarist is – see how much cash they can make by flogging their guitars at auction. For instance, The Edge from U2 sold his most iconic guitar at auction recently and made $240,000 while Jimi Hendrix's guitar sold for $400,000. Thus, Jimi Hendrix is far better at playing the guitar than The Edge.
But what about Jerry Garcia from The Grateful Dead? We already know that toilets he's used sell well at auction, but yesterday at a special Grateful Dead auction one of Garcia's electric guitars sold for $260,000. That, by our estimates, makes him also better than The Edge. Poor The Edge. But that wasn't all that was on sale at the Grateful Dead auction, as SFGate reports:
The stuff on the auction block might look like empty speaker boxes, corroded guitar strings and funky old steamer trunks, but it constituted the genuine and authentic castoffs of the great Jerry Garcia. So the bidding started high, and it went higher. One of the empty speaker boxes sold for $1,680. Other empty boxes sold for $1,200 and $900.
All in all, the Grateful Dead auction made around $1.1 million – which isn't bad for a bunch of knackered old rubbish that used to belong to a dead drug addict and his gang of endlessly masturbating musician friends. But did the Grateful Dead auction represent decent value for money?
Hardly. For the same price as people paid for all those Grateful Dead cast-offs, the discerning buyer could have bought a collection of more iconic memorabilia including John Lennon's Abbey Road suit, Audrey Hepburn's Breakfast At Tiffany's dress, KITT out of Knight Rider, Anna Nicole Smith's icky diaries, Freddie Mercury's Rolls Royce and William Shatner's kidney stone, plus there'd be enough spare change to embark upon an exploratory course of therapy to discover why they keep spending so much money on a big lot of other people's shit, too.
Read more:
Auction Of Grateful Dead Memorabilia Brings In $1.1 Million – SFGate
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Stuart, you are one hell of an angry man. Who the fuck cares if someone buys the Dead’s old shit? You don’t have to bash the fuckin band for it. I had MANY good times at Grateful Dead shows in my life. I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything. It’s a shame that a poor slob like youself has to bash a dead rock and roll icon because your life is miserable. Go jerk off to John Lennon you English asshole.
Stuart. I’m sure you were just trying to write a glib piece about a defunct rock and roll band but you come off as severly uninformed.
The Grateful Dead are not to everyone’s taste, but their vast body of work, longevity, and emergence during a defining moment in cultural history,
ensure they will be remembered for a very long time. Their technical innovation in the area of concert acoustics was years ahead of the industry
standard. Not bad for a bunch of “insert one of your insults here.” You are spiteful and misinformed.
P.S. Edge sold “his most iconic guitar.” The Garcia guitars at auction were far from “his most iconic.” It would be interesting to know how much Garcia’s
most iconic guitars might fetch if they were auctioned.
The era of peace loving, anti-war, hippies produced so many awesome bands. I put that whole era in a nutshell………..:P
I hate you, Jerry Gacia helped start a movement that has changed how the american people react to situations in times of war and peace. You dont need to say that shit about a great dead man
And what will they say about YOU when you’re dead and gone? “Well, he was kind of a sarcastic R. Christgau wannabe sort of Limey”? You better hope it’s THAT good.
Calling Garcia a drug addled old hippie guitar wanker is like like calling Hendrix a nigger with a cool headband and a big stack of Marshall’s. Man, EVERYBODY was on drugs. It was the fuckin’ 60′s f’er Christ’s sakes. Where were you, grade school?
-BMF
In 2001 Garcia’s Wolf and Tiger guitars went up for auction. Wolf made over 900,000 and Tiger over 700,000. It’s obvious you had no idea what you were writing about when you made this article.
Stuart, you have no idea whats goin on man..The dead were one of the BEST bands to ever roam these lands. Their music was one of a kind, no one could ever capture that essense like they did. Pretty much…if a person can at least appreciate and recognize the dead as a great band then they dont know whats up.
This is the most rediculous article ever. First of all you knew anything about the dead you wouldent have put that picture of him on, secondly jerry garcia has inspired so many people and musicians with his music and art (ever heard of phish?), third hes one of the best musicians of all time, fourth everyone who has ever heard of him misses him or wishes he was alive. I think its lame to sell his old stuff it should be in a museam somewhere.
I agree with all these comments, you are oblivious and small minded to write this about such a high deserving man.
whats funny to me is the title of this excerpt. “Grateful Dead Auction Proves That Hippies Are Rich.” how big of an idiot do you have to be to know that no hippies are rich.. and FURTHUR-more hippies could give a fuckless about money. thats kind of the message jerry garcia was trying to portray in his music and everyday life. life is about the peace, love, and happiness. not these greedy fuckwads, fresh out of college that think they know everything about everything and walk around with their thumb stuck up their ass. do yourself a huge favor, go to your local music shop, buy a grateful dead album drink a few beers and enjoy.. you might just change your whole perspective on this thing we call life. and better yet why dont you focus on getting one. and by one i mean life. get a fucking life you cunt. and
PS – Id imagine Jerry would be spinning around in his grave to find out they sold his guitars for just about a million dollars along with his other items. if jerry were still here he would shun people like you who care all about money. go outside for a change you fucking geek and your the type of person who cant go 5 mins with out your blackberry or your apple. do yourself a favor and burn that shit. go get some pot pick out a seed, plant it and watch it grow cause thats about as good as your doing with this article
-bless
Quite apart from the originality of the Grateful Dead’s fusion of Rock, Blues, Classical, Jazz and Blue Grass music, which granted would resonate more readily with an American ear than a European one, the extraordinary body of work this sound manifested itself in and the legendary live shows, which in themselves offered three or four alternative show’s worth of content each, when compared to other peoples… and of course the enormous following and loyalty that engendered across all stratas of American society… not to mention the rest of the world…
Quite apart from that the Grateful Dead singularly anticipated and solved the problem that has subsequently brought the balance of the music and other entertainment industries to their knees, namely piracy. When everybody else was investing in security to try and prevent bootlegging the Dead decided to use it as a marketing opportunity, figuring that if someone bought a bootleg they would just have to also buy the original release too. Which was why they used to make a special enclosure for bootleggers to get a decent recording at their gigs. Curiously, being a bunch of old hippies and giving it all away made them rather rich. They were ahead of even your time methinks….
where the hell do you get off speaking for the audience saying “everyone wants them to stop” and ” masturbating band members” where and who in the hell do you think you are? oh yea i forgot another arrogant english prick, in your terms Piss Off!!!!